With a conventional content printing system, a client transmits a print instruction to a server, which, upon reception of the print instruction, converts the content to be printed into print data. The concept of cloud computing has attracted the attention in recent years. Like the above-described content printing system, cloud computing can also be regarded as a form in which a server provides a client with services. Cloud computing is characterized mainly in the capabilities of simultaneously processing requests from many clients by distributedly performing data conversion and data processing by using many computing resources. At present, various vendors are indiscriminately being established, each implementing web services on the cloud computing environment for implementing cloud computing to provide diverse services.
Of these vendors, Google (registered trademark) is noteworthy. Google is aggressively performing various activities including the establishment of a number of large-scale data centers, the proposal of service provision in cooperation with devices, and the development of methods of communication between a device and a service. For example, Google has developed a method of data communication for service provision in cooperation with an image forming apparatus, and disclosed an interface for enabling the image forming apparatus to perform data communication with the cloud computing environment provided by Google. With this interface implemented in an image forming apparatus, a client can specify the image forming apparatus and instruct it to perform printing even if the image forming apparatus is connected with a server via the Internet.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-196054 discusses a technique in which a server and an image forming apparatus cooperate with each other. In the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-196054, a service for generating print data by the server receives a print instruction and printing control information from a client and then generates print data based on the printing control information. This technique enables performing printing suitable for the image forming apparatus without installing a printer driver on the client.
With the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-196054, however, it is necessary to implement in the image forming apparatus a dedicated interface for communicating with the server. Accordingly, there has been a problem that existing image forming apparatuses, i.e., legacy printers already put on the market, cannot be connected to the server. Although the technique may be used by replacing a board including a communication module, remarkably high work load and cost may result. Further, to utilize a plurality of printing services, it is necessary to implement in each image forming apparatus a communication module conforming to a specification of a vendor providing each individual service, resulting in an increase in complexity and cost. Further, printing services started after sales of an image forming apparatus cannot be easily utilized.
Even if the dedicated interface is implemented, printing cannot be preformed if print data acquired from the server is not in a format that is interpretable by the image forming apparatus (for example, if PDF data is received by an image forming apparatus that is incapable of interpreting PDF).